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Mutant in paradise... Mutant in paradise...

Mutant in paradise...

Last season I ramped up my brugmansia hybridizing efforts using brugmansias with mutant and deeply serrated foliage.  The results of those...

Fred's Garden Blog

After a nearly five year hiatus, Fred's Garden Blog is back! Now you can enjoy and experience the gardening exploits and adventures of Fred in his quest to hybridize brugmansia and keep his jungle and nursery under control.

Sommer Gardens / Sunday, May 30, 2010 / Categories: Brugmansia, Random thoughts, Weather

Pick up sticks...

Seeing how I'm sort of playing catch-up here I thought I would share a few photos from the post-freeze clean-up.  To recap, the winter of 2009 was said to be the worst ever here in Central Florida.  I had planned to build a large shade house last fall to protect my brugs, but was not able to do so.  I relied on frost cloth, plastic sheeting, and an endless supply of water to protect my brugs.  The damage was great and I estimate that I lost about 30% of my plants.

Here's a photo from early spring after I had cut back many of my larger brugmansia seedlings to the ground.

rowofdeadbrugbranches.jpg
I was excited to see many of the plants sprouting new growth shortly after I did my pruning.  Before the month-long clean-up process was over i ended up with several large piles of dead brug cuttings like the one below. 

pileofdeadbrugs.jpg
I also learned to be very careful when handling large quantities of brugmansia branches.  When I was cleaning up this mess the temps were near 80 so I opted to work shirtless and in shorts....BIG MISTAKE! At the time many of the branches were still oozing out sap and of course I got completely coated with the stuff.  By the end of the day I was not feeling well and it took me almost a week to feel normal again.  I handle brugs all the time and have never had this happen before, even when I spend a day taking fresh cutting to propagate.  I'm sure it was just the result of me be glazed over by all the sap.

Rather than burn the piles as I have done in the past, I'm letting them decompose to avoid potential dangers from clouds of burning brugmansia smoke.

I will have my shadehouse and greenhouse built by this fall so i hope to never see piles of dead brugs like this again!


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